The Castlefield Artisan Market is a new market for the canal-side area of Manchester’s city centre.

“A monthly (every 1st Sunday of the month) fine food, antique, vintage and craft market. Bringing some of the regions highly acclaimed Artisan food producers with interesting antique and vintage stalls.”

The MCC was there last month and will return again to sell the best of Manchester’s self published comics and a selection of Travelling Man’s small press section.

If you’d like to sell your work on the MCC Comics Stall it is totally FREE! Simply get it to me. Either bring it down, ideally, before 10am on the day or drop it off at Travelling Man (4 Dale Street) before 5pm on Saturday 3rd. Please label your stock ‘FAO MCC’.

Come along for a fine selection of comics as well as award winning food such as chocolate, curries, cakes and pies, plenty of other hand crafted products like jewellery and clothes and there’ll be a Jazz band and Swing Dancing too!

Come on down and get some Christmas shopping done early. Our comics make perfect gifts, waaay better than socks.

Here are some photos from last month:

Here I am (shivering) in the MCC Gazebo! The Hot Vimtos got me through but this month I will actually have a winter coat and thermal underoos, so I won't look quite so curmudgeonly.

Richard Hughes manning the stall in a manly fashion. What a man!

The open area of the market basking in the autumn sun. Our stall was located under the arches.

The Castlefield Market is a new market for the canal-side area of Manchester’s city centre.

“A monthly (every 1st Sunday of the month) fine food, antique, vintage and craft market. Bringing some of the regions highly acclaimed Artisan food producers with interesting antique and vintage stalls.”

Last month was the Market’s first event and I’m glad to say the MCC will be there this month at the second. I will be there selling my own comics (Blood Blokes #1 out now!) and a selection of Travelling Man’s small press section.

If you’d like to sell your work there too just GET IT TO ME, either bring it down before 10am on the day or drop it off at Travelling Man (4 Dale Street) before 5pm on Saturday 5th. Please label your stock ‘FAO MCC’. There is NO CHARGE for the table, it is totally FREE.

Come along for a fine selection of comics as well as award winning food such as chocolate, curries, cakes and pies, plenty of other hand crafted products like jewellery and clothes and (if it’s the same as last month) there’ll be Swing Dancing from 12-2pm.

I hope to see you there!

HEY GUYS! Before I go on about this month’s DnD, you may have noticed on Twitter that last month’s BIG Drink ‘n’ Draw won the 5 Star Forever Manchester Award judged by Large Manchester for the Not Part Of Festival!!! You can read Large Manchester’s 5 star review of the event here: http://www.largemanchester.com/drink-n-draw.html

Thank you to everyone who came and made it such a success and special thanks to our guests Andy Diggle, Jim Medway, Leah Moore and John Reppion and our friend at Sandbar Mr. Dom Harbot. Thanks everyone for winning me an award, bwahaha! I missed the Not Part Of closing party/award ceremony so I’ll post a photo of the award itself just as soon as I pick it up.

Anyway, onto business! This month’s event will be the usual affair but will hosted by Dom Harbot. I (Adam) will be there but not necessarily for the full 4 hours. Also as it lands on the day after the Manchester MCM Expo, we should be joined by a few guests in town for the show, namely the sexy Marc Ellerby!!! Lock up your daughters! Hopefully a few more people staying over in town for the show will come along.

As always the Drink ‘n’ Draw will be FREE to attend, and we’ll have the usual drawing games, FREE snacks AND pizzas, FREE comics at the Comic Swap table, materials provided and 10% off at the bar! Sandbar is now doing food so now there’s no need to leave early and get some grub because as well as the FREE PIZZA there’s a full menu to choose from. Huzzah!

On a side note, if people do find the Sunday afternoon timing of DnD gets in the way of their Sunday tea time, please let me know because Sandbar is now opening at 2pm on a Sunday instead of 4pm, so we could easily move the event to 2-6pm. Thoughts?

That’s about it! See you at the AWARD WINNING Drink ‘n’ Draw! (I wonder how long I’ll keep doing that)

RSVP on the Facebook Event page and see who else is attending! Join the Drink ‘n’ Draw Facebook Group while you’re there too, for updates of all future events.

Venue:

Sandbar
120 Grosvenor Street
Manchester
M1 7HL
0161 273 1552
(Map)

Next Saturday sees the very first Manchester MCM Expo! For months following its announcement there was no news about the event and simply a holding image on their website of Spidey humping the old G-Mex. Finally, late last month the site went live and shortly after that the ‘Artist’s Alley’ line up was announced, the equivalent of the Comics Village at the much larger London shows. Tables are free for creators and a nice handful of talent will be there on the day including…

Special Guests Leigh Gallagher (Dafoe, 2000AD), Marc Ellerby (Chloe Noonan, CBGBs), Anthony Johnston (Wasteland, Daredevil) and John McCrea (loads of stuff). Plus Lizz Lunney, Timothy Winchester, Joe List, Rob Jackson, Dumpy Little Robot, Accent UK, Graham Pearce and me Adam Cadwell and lots more.

As well as all the other movies, games, anime, manga and merchandise stalls there’ll be a few stars there doing signings (I don’t know if this is free or not) including Warwick Davis which I’m most excited about!

I suspect there’ll be a few other comic folks hanging around too, taking advantage of the fact that people are travelling TO Manchester for a comic show for a change. As for after party shenanigans I don’t know of any official event, so I’m thinking of picking a pub and telling everyone to go, therefore creating an MCC MCM After Party. Just rolls off the tongue doesn’t it? More on that soon.

AND for anyone staying in Manchester overnight, there’ll be the AWARD WINNING monthly Drink ‘n’ Draw event on the Sunday, 4pm -8pm at Sandbar, free entry, free snacks and pizza, free comics and 10% off at the bar. It’d be nice to see some out of towners join in.

Any additional info or suggestions for an after party venue, please leave your comments below.

TICKETS (More info here)

EARLY ENTRY OPENING – Saturday: 9.30am to 5pm (Last ticket sale 10.55am)
£8 each regardless of Adult or Child, includes booking fee.

GENERAL OPENING – Saturday: 11am to 5pm (Last ticket sale 4pm)
Adult Ticket: £5 (15 years old & above)
Child Ticket: £3 (11 to 14 years old)
Kids Go Free: (10 years old and below)
*Children (10 years old & below) gain Free Entry if accompanied by a full paying adult (restricted to 2 children per full paying adult) The ‘Kids Go Free’ offer only applies to ‘General Entry’ tickets.

VENUE

Manchester Central (formerly G-Mex)
Petersfield
Manchester
M2 3GX
(Map)

Just a little note to say that the Andy Diggle talk at this week’s BIG Drink ‘n’ Draw will focus on the idea of literacy in comics and the medium’s potential as a learning aid for children. Joining us for the talk will be cartoonist and comics tutor Jim Medway! If you are at all interested in the role of comic books in education, you’d better not miss this talk at 6pm, Thursday 30th, at Sandbar.

The BIG Drink ‘n’ Draw is only ONE WEEK AWAY! Here’s a nifty poster for everyone to tweet about! Please feel free to use this image and blog about the event to help spread the word and make our first BIG DnD a success.

Just a reminder that the BIG Drink ‘n’ Draw is a FREE event and you can RSVP on the Facebook Event page.

“The Birmingham Zine Festival returns in July 2011 to celebrate alternative publications! It will feature a varied collection of exhibitors who self-publish books, comics and magazines. Over 30 individual zine-makers and distributors are coming from all over the country to display and sell their work. Members of the public are invited to browse the work on show and take part in our workshops.”

There’s a lot of events happening this year as part of the Zine Festival, so check out the site for all the info, but the highlight for comic fans will be the Zine Fair on the Saturday with badge-making and drawing workshops and refreshments as well!

Comic artists attending will be Marc Ellerby, John Allison, Lizz Lunney, Luke Pearson, Phillipa Rice, Dan Berry, Adam Cadwell, Kristyna Baczynski, Howard Hardiman, Joe List, Katie Green, Timothy Winchester, Sean Azzopardi, oh the list goes on.

If you’re thinking you would have loved to get a table but it’s too late now, there is a communal table on offer to drop off your work and maybe make some sales while spending your cash on other people’s comics.

After the fair will be a BBQ in the courtyard of The Jekyll and Hyde pub from 6pm – 9pm followed by an after-show party above the pub in the Gin Parlour, 8pm – 1.30am.

I can’t wait! See you all there!

“Bryan Talbot discusses his graphic novels Grandville and Grandville Mon Amour and the venerable and on-going tradition of anthropomorphic characters in illustration and comics from which they have emerged.

£5.00, Salmon Room”

Buy tickets at here at We Got Tickets or pay on the door.

Part of The Lass O’Gowrie‘s LassFest.

Venue:
The Lass O’Gowrie
36 Charles Street
Manchester
M1 7DB

Map

0161 273 6932

“An audience with Al Ewing – a British comics writer with extensive experience in the small press and for 2000 AD.

£2.00, Salmon Room.”

Buy tickets at here at We Got Tickets or pay on the door.

Part of The Lass O’Gowrie‘s LassFest.

Venue:
The Lass O’Gowrie
36 Charles Street
Manchester
M1 7DB

Map

0161 273 6932

“One half of the celebrated Moore-Reppion comics writing partnership, John Reppion presents a talk on different incarnations of the cities of Liverpool and Manchester, real and imagined, in his own writing, the work of others and beyond.

£2.00, Salmon Room”

Buy tickets at here at We Got Tickets or pay on the door.

Part of The Lass O’Gowrie‘s LassFest.

Venue:
The Lass O’Gowrie
36 Charles Street
Manchester
M1 7DB

Map

0161 273 6932